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Elston Turner, Sr. Had to be back when Mears lost it. Damn!

Turner graduated the same year Mears left (1977), but that is no excuse for ignoring him.  I understand that Turner was never even contacted by UT, much less offered, and that was a big mistake.  I was a junior in high school at Bearden when he was a senior Austin East, and I got to see him play quite a bit.  He was clearly a college caliber player, and his AE team won the state championship his senior year.  I certainly wanted him at UT, as did many Vols fans at the time.  I suppose he had already committed to Ole Miss when Devoe came onboard.  I have heard that Bruce Pearl smoothed things over with him so that much of the bad feelings he had about UT are now gone, but that really was a snub that made no sense at all.

So, were you at the Bearden/AE game played at the Civic Coliseum during you sophomore year?  AE had come to Bearden and put a hundred on us and beat us by 40 earlier in the year.  We played them at the Coliseum in their home game because their gym was so small.  There was a huge crowd there for the rematch. 

Long story short, Jeff Shartzer hit the first of a 1 and 1, pulling us to within 1 with about 5 seconds to go.  He missed the second, and Gilles Cruze went up over George Underwood to tip it in.  We lead by a point and with AE having no times out the clock kept running.  AE inbounds the ball long to Turner, who goes up from about 35 and hits nothing but net.  Both (only two in those ancient days in high school basketball) officials at the same time signaled no good, but the AE fans didn't know that and stormed the court. They thought that AE had won the game.  When they finally figured out that they hadn't, some of the AE fans stormed towards the officials. 

It was an interesting evening to say the least. 

No, I wasn't there.  I forget what I was doing with my dad that evening, but we listened to the end of the game on the radio, so I remember the sequence of events well.  After the game, the radio broadcast immediately went to a story about rioting, and my dad and I thought it was about the shot being called no good at the end.  I can clearly remember how upset my dad was.  It turned out to be totally unrelated to the game and the rioting wasn't even in Knoxville.  Strange stuff, but just an awesome win by the Bulldogs.   :biggrin:

I used to work for Guille Cruze at his company which he has since sold to another corporation.  I remember him telling me about that game  when we were out having lunch one time.  Funny thing is that we always knew when a marketer was calling for Guille in that most of them pronounced it Gwillie or some such like that when it is really pronounced Gill. 

Yeah, my mother saw the story on the "riot" at the Coliseum on the news, too.  That, of course, was in the days before cell phones.  Long story longer - I stayed out really late that night and didn't get home until about 3 AM.  Mom was waiting up for me worried to death.  I never knew anything about the "riot" story, so I hadn't called or anything.  I always felt bad because I made her worry that night. 

Or rotary phones . . .

Yeah, but it wasn't too tough a climb to the top of the pole in Hooterville in those days. 

when we had Derrick Hord. He was a player, very talented.

I was just starting to like you ...  :frown:
I'd really hate to sic the Pal Mafia on ya! :naughty:

Saw him play when Tennessee High came to Bearden. 

like 44 points and I think Hord scored about 40.

nm

Come now we had rotary phnes when we were growing up......
Now when midtnvol was growing up they had a switchboard and you just asked Miss Mamie for the person you wanted to talk to

the Clemson Rat Bastards. lol

Yeah, I remember him, too.